We're All Same (Sex) Now?: Lesbian (Same) Sex; Consummation; Adultery and Marriage
Journal of GLBT Family Studies, Forthcoming
Posted: 18 Feb 2016 Last revised: 12 Sep 2016
Date Written: February 17, 2016
Abstract
This article argues that the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 applicable in England and Wales should have included nonconsummation as grounds for annulment and adultery as a fact of divorce. The absence of these two concepts is representative of a failure by law to fully accept the importance of equality. As such, the legislation will continue to perpetuate formal and substantive inequality, resulting in the continued repression of women who marry women. This will have important ramifications for the citizenship of intimacy for such women to which rights, duties, and obligations will attach. The legal ability of women who marry women to join the “marriage club,” as it is currently defined, will not queer or radically challenge marriage. While it might have been “easier” to abandon the concepts of consummation and adultery altogether, including and widening the concepts of consummation and adultery to encompass same-sex couples would offer the potential to undertake a queering of marriage. To exclude these concepts risks perpetuating the idea that gay men and lesbians are not sexual beings. Given the heteropatriarchal nature of the concepts of adultery and consummation, this article specifically focuses on how same-sex marriage will affect women who marry women as opposed to what is commonly termed the GLBTQ community.
Keywords: Adultery, consummation, law, lesbians, same-sex marriage
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation